Poetry and other fantasies Category:  Horror Publisher: Dark Continents Publishing ISBN-10:  0983160333 Type: Fiction Pages: 172 Copyright: 2011 ISBN-13: 9780983160335 A collection of speculative poetry, fiction and recipes, fully illustrated.

Edward Cox review
Blood Curry
by John Irvine
Reviewed by Edward Cox
(600 words approx)

Food has always been a source of inspiration for writers, especially fruit with its rich metaphors of skin and flesh and seeds, and the juxtaposition of a healthy options diet used to explore darker themes. With Blood Curry, John Irvine shrugs off the diet entirely, cracks open a tub of real lard, and fries up a full English breakfast for the morning after a night on the booze with your friends . . . that is if your friends just happen to be creatures of nightmare whose particular tipple is poison that has been mulled and spiced with blood.
Blood Curry is a collection of poems and flash fiction, and each piece is as gruesome as the next. “Compassion” is a jarring account of a mother’s ‘kindness’, while “Grandfather” and “It’s a Dirty Job” are disturbing in their use of supposed taboos. In “The Voodoo Man” Death is not so easy to cheat, and “The Symphony of Abaddon” puts souls on the menu as the devil grooms we poor mortals for a place in his eternal choir.
Lurking between the poems and stories are recipes from around the world for genuine dishes with one common ingredient: animal blood. In context of the book, these recipes read like something found on the menu for Mrs Lovett’s pie shop. Not only will they repulse you, but also leave you strangely hungry for what’s on offer. The most gruesome dish is perhaps Tiét Canh, or Raw Blood Soup, which is made with the life juice of ducks or geese. Diners are warned that eating Tiét Canh runs the risk of contracting the H5N1 bird flu virus, which, frankly, seems the least of their worries.
An anthology so inspired by food demands the appearance of vampires somewhere along the line, and Irvine doesn’t disappoint with the likes of “You know you’re a writer when . . .” and “Hollywood”. Nor, indeed, could the absence of cannibals be excused, and here we’re treated tales like “Undead” and “Five”. And to provide a little light in the darkness, Irvine scatters a few jokes here and there such as: Zero gravity love: coming is mainly going; and: My alien penis: one is apparently too many.
My favourite piece of the collection is “The Sailor”, which is also accompanied by my favourite piece of artwork, courtesy of Marge Simon. “The Sailor” is a chilly account of a passenger waiting to be taken across the river Styx. Unfortunately for this passenger, Charon might just be hungry for more than the coin in his hand. The poem carries a sense of menace throughout, and the imagery suggests there is more here than what the eye can see and the ear can hear:
His ship glides
effortlessly,
casting no bow wave,
making no sound,
touching gently
upon the shore where
a passenger waits.
All in all, Blood Curry is a book that’s out to have fun, to disturb, to entertain and intrigue. The provocative and thoughtful artwork of Tony Karnes, Laura Givens, Jeff Beckman, Cathy Edmunds, Marge Simon, Stella Danelius and Dave Freeman, does a grand job of rubber stamping the imagery induced by the words. And with a final note on our wordsmith, a man who hopes to die peacefully one day without warning and with minimal leakage, John Irvine is certainly an author you want to find on your bookshelf, but most definitely not in your kitchen.

EdwardCox
for Star*Line magazine


Keith Stephenson review
Anomalous Appetites
John Irvine (Editor)
Lulu

Blood Curry
John Irvine
Dark Continents Publishing

Horror poetry. There’s a niche subgenre if ever there was one, but there appears to be quite a lot happening in this particular area with the arrival of three collections in the past year.
Anomalous Appetites edited by Kiwi John Irvine is a truly international smorgasbord of ‘fantastic’ poetry, spanning SF, fantasy, horror and all points in between. Each poem is accompanied by an original illustration. It was a prodigious undertaking from John and the outcome is impressive. At times playful and self-referential, at others it is darkly revealing.
John’s own work has now surfaced in the deliciously titled Blood Curry, described as a, ‘collection of recipes, poems and short stories in the speculative genre’. Again beautifully illustrated, I can imagine the fictional Paul Haines having a copy of this next to his other cook books. Perhaps there’s something in the New Zealand water that makes for unsettling writing. Whatever the cause, you’ll find it here in spades.

Keith Stevenson
Writer, Publisher, Editor
www.keithstevenson.com
Read coeur de lion books — www.coeurdelion.com.au
Listen to the Terra Incognita podcast – www.tisf.com.au and on itunes


Scary Minds review
Blood Curry (2011)
Author : John Irvine
Publisher : Dark Continents Publishing
Length : 172 pages
Genre : Collection
Blurb : A collection of recipes, poems, and short stories in the speculative genre
Country : New Zealand

Review
“Dunno, son. Seen a lotta strange things in my time in the bush, even saw the Min Min lights once, but this has got me whacked.” – Barry

Kiwi John Irvine delivers a collection full of poetry, flash pieces, and art, as he explores the speculative fiction realms with a decided morbid twist to the journey. While Irvine does settle into some Science Fiction and touches bases with fantasy via some interesting takes on faery tales he appears to be more at home with darker notions of what makes the genre tick. Plus for those prepared to experiment there’s a fair swag of recipes revolving around the liberal mixing of blood into the equation. So it is true, you can have your blood curry and eat it too. Oh come on you must have seen that one coming from a mile away. Let’s see what ingredients Irvine has for our palates.

One of the few truths we have held to here at ScaryMinds over the past four or so years is that we don’t review poetry. Simply put, we really don’t have the critical firepower to get down and dirty with what at times is pretty abstract stuff that delivers meaning only to those prepared to spend Saturday afternoon drinking lattes at various cafes rather than dialling into the footy with a cold pint at hand. However John Irvine may have just changed that, though I’m not too sure the lads would be happy with me packing a book of verse down the terraces. Irvine delivers the sort of blood drenched, dark toned, poetry that makes you wonder if you shouldn’t crack a bottle of merlot and sit reading Blood Curry in front of a roaring log fire. Not advised in the Aussie summer yo! Irvine’s lines flow off the page, build narrative vistas, deliver emotion, and generally do all the good things poetry is meant to do without the insipid naval gazing so much of the medium wallows in. If you ever wanted to take out and dust off your leather elbowed jacket then Blood Curry is a good kicking off spot, I haven’t enjoyed poetry to this extent since I read Paradise Lost at University quite some time ago. Am I comparing John Irvine to John Milton? – hell no, Irvine writes for a modern audience and delivers far more accessible verse than Milton’s aging epic can serve up. Blood Curry is well worth the price of admission on the poetry alone, and the particularly delicate topping here is that the lines revolve around some pretty bad arsed dark genre concepts. Damn you John Irvine, now I’m going to have to tackle some books of poetry that have been gathering dust in the review queue.

Having fallen for Irvine’s poetic wiles the actual prose came as a bonus. The Author throws together a swag of flash fiction that visits with some of the more refined horror tropes in startlingly original fashion. So you have tales involving Vampires, Werewolves, all manner of Dexter candidates, and of course the sort of SciFi that NASA won’t be including on their recommended reading lists any time soon. Irvine doesn’t dial into anything approaching short story length, the prose is solidly in the flash fiction length, so you get some very solid writing in easily digestible chunks that should have most Readers grooving to the Irvine beat. Flash isn’t the easiest thing on the planet to tackle, for mine John Irvine joins Shane Jiraiya Cummings at the forefront of flash writers Downunder.

John Irvine’s writing style is like single malt flowing over your taste buds. It’s been a while since I’ve run across a new Writer, for me at least, who is completely in command of his style and able to deliver the dark genre goods, but Irvine fits the bill. If you need a course in how to write flash fiction to best effect then dial into Blood Curry, class is in folks, or simply get your reading groove on.

Story locations arrange from North America, through Britain, and down to Australia and New Zealand. John Irvine is pretty much across each region, so if overly parochial Irvine has your back. It’s actually something of an achievement to write in differing styles to match the locations, but hey enough stroking of egos here, we just enjoy a decent read over here.

I mentioned the book has recipes right? Well if you don’t mind the concept of blood as an ingredient then you’ll probably find something worth creating in your kitchen as Irvine strangely brings recipes from around the world that are likely to push a lot of people out of their comfort zones. My house is simply overrun with cookbooks, if your wife is a baker that’s a given y’all, but not quite sure I’m ready to crack on to making one of these recipes to be honest. Though a feed of black pudding for breakfast is something I’ll put my hand up for.

There’s a boat load of art included in Blood Curry that should round out your meal and provide the visual requirements for the day. We’re talking pencil sketches of various elements of the stories and poems, or stuff Irvine picked up off the web to help illustrate the ideas going down. Okay so this is normally a magazine concept but I’m not opposed to the idea and rocked on with some of the art being presented for our appreciation.

As soon as I started reading the kick off story Breeders I was hooked by Blood Curry to such an extent that I tackled the poetry as well. Full recommendation on this collection kids, John Irvine is unfortunately a very undiscovered Writer, but I’m pretty sure with increased attention being sent his way we could have another Downunder scribe to match the best of North America and Britain. Do yourself a favour and get stuck into this book, it will pay back your attention like a run-away night up the Cross. Try the recipes at the risk of your own well-being but take note of the prose and verse.

John Irvine maintains a web presence right about http://www.cooldragon.co.nz/